Sarah Pirie-Nally
AI Strategist · Keynote Speaker · Author
The Gap Is Growing
I've spoken to hundreds of leaders over the past 18 months, and I keep seeing the same pattern: a widening gap between those who are using AI strategically and those who are still watching from the sidelines.
The good news? The gap is still closeable. But not for much longer.
Here are the five moves I'd make if I were starting from scratch today.
Move 1: Audit Your AI Maturity (Honestly)
Before you can move forward, you need to know where you actually are — not where you think you are, and not where you wish you were.
Most leaders overestimate their organisation's AI readiness by about two levels. They see a few enthusiastic early adopters using ChatGPT and assume the whole organisation is "on the journey." It's not.
A real AI maturity audit looks at:
- Awareness — does your team understand what AI can and can't do?
- Adoption — are people actually using AI tools in their daily work?
- Integration — is AI built into your workflows, or is it still an add-on?
- Strategy — do you have a clear AI roadmap aligned to your business goals?
Most organisations I work with are at level 1 or 2. That's fine — it's the starting point, not the destination.
Move 2: Identify Your "Wonder Zones"
Not every part of your business should be AI-first. The magic is in knowing where AI creates the most leverage for your specific context.
I call these your Wonder Zones — the intersection of:
- High-volume, repeatable tasks that drain your best people
- Decisions that need more data than any human can process
- Customer touchpoints where speed and personalisation matter
Your Wonder Zones are unique to you. A professional services firm's Wonder Zones look completely different from a retailer's. Stop copying what the tech companies are doing and start mapping your own.
Move 3: Build Your Human Intelligence Stack
Here's the thing nobody in the AI conversation is saying loudly enough: the more AI we have, the more human intelligence we need.
Empathy, ethical reasoning, creative intuition, relational trust — these are not soft skills. They are strategic assets that AI cannot replicate.
The leaders who will win the next decade are the ones investing in both stacks simultaneously: their AI capability and their human intelligence. Not one or the other.
Move 4: Create Psychological Safety Around AI
The biggest blocker to AI adoption in most organisations isn't the technology. It's fear.
Fear of being replaced. Fear of getting it wrong. Fear of looking stupid in front of colleagues who seem to "get it" already.
Your job as a leader is to create the conditions where people feel safe to experiment, fail, learn, and try again. That means:
- Talking openly about your own AI learning curve
- Celebrating experiments, not just successes
- Removing the penalty for "I tried this and it didn't work"
Move 5: Define Your AI Ethics Line
Every organisation needs to decide, explicitly and in advance, what they will not use AI for.
Your AI ethics line might include things like:
- We will not use AI to make final decisions about people's employment
- We will always disclose when content is AI-assisted
- We will not use AI to replace human relationships in our client-facing work
Draw the line. Write it down. Share it with your team.
The Bottom Line
AI is not a technology problem. It's a leadership problem.
If you want a personalised AI readiness assessment, the Wonder Audit maps exactly where you are and what to do next.
